Battle of Ballantyne Pier
Encyclopedia
Ballantyne Pier
was the site of a docker's strike in Vancouver, BC, in June 1935. It was a federally owned dock built by the National Harbours Board In 1923, and named for the head of the Harbours Board. There were ongoing strikes on the West Coast of North America in the Depression and it led to the right to collectively bargain and the rise of the I.L.W. U. (See Celtic Shipyard, 1934 West Coast strike; San Francisco)
The story of the Battle of Ballantyne Pier can be traced back to 1912 when the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), began organizing amongst waterfront workers in Canada, and alongside the Lumber Handlers’ Union in Vancouver. Going head to head with the employers association, the Shipping Federation, several strikes resulting in wage increases were won by workers in the coming years. Victories on the waterfront increased over the next decade, and by 1923 the Shipping Federation became determined to break the power of the ILA.
A strike broke out in October 1923 which saw 1400 men joining picket lines at the Vancouver waterfront. However, provisions had been made by the Shipping Federation. The dockers were immediately met by 350 men armed with shotguns who had been housed on a nearby ship. This intimidation of the strikers, coupled with the fact that ships were still being loaded and unloaded by numerous non-union workers, forced the strike to collapse two months later.
The 1923 strike destroyed the ILA, and it was soon replaced a new organization, the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association (VDWWA). Set up originally by the bosses as a company union, the VDWWA soon began to take a confrontational stance towards the Shipping Federation. By 1935, nearly every port in British Columbia had been organised by the VDWWA. Following the pretext to the destruction of the ILA, the Shipping Federation provoked another major strike in the spring of 1935, locking out 50 dockers at the port at Powell River.
The strike soon snowballed to bring other dockers across the region into the fold. Following a refusal to unload ships coming from Powell River, 900 workers were met with a lockout in Vancouver. Dockers across the border in Seattle also refused to unload ships coming from Vancouver and Powell River that were manned by non-union workers.
On June 18, several weeks after the original lockout, between 900-1100 dockers and their supporters marched through Vancouver towards Ballantyne Pier where non-union workers were unloading ships. The strikers were met at the pier by several hundred armed policeman. Attempting to force their way through, the dockers soon found themselves under attack from the police lines. Many marchers were clubbed as they tried to run to safety, while many others tried hopelessly to fight back, using whatever weapons they could find. Aided by Mounties who had been posted nearby, the police continued to attack the strikers. The VDWWA union hall was attacked, with tear gas being used against members of the women's auxiliary who had set up a first aid station inside. The battle continued for three hours, and ended with several hospitalizations, including that of a fleeing striker who had been shot in the back of his legs.
Dragging on until December, the strike lost much of its militant character after the fighting at Ballantyne Pier. The struggle to form a union completely independent of the Shipping Federation continued for another two years, when, in 1937, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was born.
The strike of 1935 failed. It did, however, lay the path for the future founding of a union for the dockers of British Colombia which was completely independent of the employers' association. The ILWU participated in numerous disputes in the following years, and in the 1940s was integral in winning many strikes that lead to better pay and conditions for waterfront workers.
Source: http://libcom.org
The Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association
(VDWWA) was established as a company union
following a defeated longshoremen's strike in 1923, replacing the International Longshoremen's Association
. Communist organizers with the Workers' Unity League
(WUL) managed to seize control of the VDWWA's executive a decade later and transformed it into a militant union, which then began working towards strike action. A strike, or more accurately a lock-out, finally commenced on 27 May 1935. This was several months after an agreement had been reached between the union and the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, but the terms of which were unfavourable to the longshoremen. In late May, union membership voted to take over the despatching of work gangs on the harbour to load and unload ships as required. Despatching was a key issue for longshoremen, and prior to the 1923 strike had been carried out by the union. Longshoremen claimed that the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, an employers' association of waterfront-based companies and the main employer on the docks, unfairly discriminated against workers. Especially targeted were those considered sympathetic to an independent union or simply disliked by the despatcher, making the allocation of work a punitive mechanism and the job itself insecure. When the union unilaterally took over despatching, the Federation claimed it was a violation of their agreement and locked out the longshoremen. Replacement workers, known pejoratively as "scabs" by strikers, were mobilized along with hundreds of police specials
recruited to break the strike.
. Communist leaders were attempting to merge the two strikes and spark a general strike. The Shipping Federation and the police were aware of this plan, and claimed it was an attempt to start a Bolshevik revolution on the Pacific Coast
. Thus, when the waterfront strike finally began, tensions were already high between anticommunists and strikers.
Historians agree that both strikes were driven by legitimate grievances: abyssmal conditions in the relief camps and despatching and other workplace issues on the waterfront. Nevertheless, a massive mobilization that included all three levels of police, with specials attached to each police force, took place in anticipation of an attempted revolution. Specials trained at the Beatty Street Drill Hall
under Brigadier-General Victor Odlum
and Colonel C.E. Edgett
and were coordinated by a group called the Citizens' League of British Columbia, a vigilante organization funded by the Shipping Federation. Militia units based in the Point Grey
neighbourhood of Vancouver and in Victoria, British Columbia
were also ready to be called to action on short notice. The Point Grey militia, however, consisted of inmates of a specially designated relief camp and many of them eventually joined the relief camp strikers.
The Communist plan to merge the strikes and spark a general strike
failed, except for a one-day demonstration commemorating May Day
. On 3 June 1935, shortly after the waterfront strike began, the relief camp strikers left the city to begin the On-to-Ottawa Trek
in an effort to take their grievance to the nation's capital. Nevertheless, the authorities persisted in conflating the waterfront strike with revolution, perhaps because they were alarmed by the waterfront strike in the United States
the previous year that shut down most shipping operations along the American coast and which culminated in a bloody general strike in San Francisco.
Unlike earlier waterfront strikes, longshoremen were prevented from picketing the docks to discourage strikebreaking, and claimed that they were going to go en masse to talk to the non-union workers. They were led by Victoria Cross
recipient Mickey O'Rourke and a contingent of First World War
veterans and marched behind a Union Jack flag, to great symbolic effect. At the entrance to the pier, they were met by Chief Constable Colonel W. W. Foster, who warned the demonstrators that they would not be permitted to proceed. When they refused to turn back, protesters were attacked with clubs by the police guarding the pier. Within minutes, more police joined in the fight. In addition to the Vancouver city police
, contingents from the British Columbia Provincial Police
, who had been hiding behind boxcars, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
, engaged with demonstrators. The police chased the dispersing crowd, continuing to club people even as they fled and fired tear gas. Many protesters fought back, throwing rocks and other projectiles at the police, while others that were attacked were simply trying to flee the scene. The ensuing melee continued for three hours and spread throughout the nearby residential district. Several people, both police and protesters, were hospitalized as a result of the riot, and one bystander was shot in the back of his legs by a police shotgun. Offices of Communist organizers and the longshoremen's union were also raided, with tear gas shot through the windows to drive out any occupants before the police entered. Strike supporters set up a makeshift hospital at the Ukrainian Hall, and the police did the same for their wounded at the Coroner's Court on Cordova Street. In total, 28 out of the 60 injured were hospitalized and 24 men were arrested. Mayor Gerry McGeer
declared that striking longshoremen would no longer be eligible for relief payments for themselves or their families.
(ILWU), Local 500.
It was also the last of WUL militancy that Vancouver would witness. That same year, the Comintern
in Moscow
abandoned its Third Period
strategy, which entailed the creation of the Workers' Unity League and similar militant trade union organizations in other countries with the goal of building a radical labour movement separate
from mainstream labour organizations. Under the new Popular Front
strategy, Communists joined established unions and helped to build the Congress of Industrial Organizations
. Moreover, Communist priorities shifted from the industrial to the political arena, where they fielded candidates and supported Cooperative Commonwealth Federation candidates, while others joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
to fight Franco's
fascists
in the Spanish Civil War
.
While far more localized than the On-to-Ottawa Trek, the Battle of Ballantyne Pier was part of the fierce, and perhaps paranoid, anticommunist reaction provoked by the Communists
and the militant workers' movement they led. Public attitudes shifted away from the Conservative
government of R.B. "Iron Heel" Bennett because of its mishandling of depression-era unrest in such events, which paved the way for Bennett's defeat in the federal election
that same year. Although machine guns were not used in the riot, another First World War technology was introduced in Vancouver policing that day: tear gas. Another major clash between the unemployed and the police took place in 1938. Relief camp workers returned to the city and were violently evicted from Post Office
by means of tear gas bombs and police clubs (primarily the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
in that instance).
Ballantyne Pier
Ballantyne Pier is a commercial and passenger dock in Vancouver's east end. It sits at the west side of Rogers Sugar across the Canadian Pacific Railway Tracks from Powell Street....
was the site of a docker's strike in Vancouver, BC, in June 1935. It was a federally owned dock built by the National Harbours Board In 1923, and named for the head of the Harbours Board. There were ongoing strikes on the West Coast of North America in the Depression and it led to the right to collectively bargain and the rise of the I.L.W. U. (See Celtic Shipyard, 1934 West Coast strike; San Francisco)
The story of the Battle of Ballantyne Pier can be traced back to 1912 when the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), began organizing amongst waterfront workers in Canada, and alongside the Lumber Handlers’ Union in Vancouver. Going head to head with the employers association, the Shipping Federation, several strikes resulting in wage increases were won by workers in the coming years. Victories on the waterfront increased over the next decade, and by 1923 the Shipping Federation became determined to break the power of the ILA.
A strike broke out in October 1923 which saw 1400 men joining picket lines at the Vancouver waterfront. However, provisions had been made by the Shipping Federation. The dockers were immediately met by 350 men armed with shotguns who had been housed on a nearby ship. This intimidation of the strikers, coupled with the fact that ships were still being loaded and unloaded by numerous non-union workers, forced the strike to collapse two months later.
The 1923 strike destroyed the ILA, and it was soon replaced a new organization, the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association (VDWWA). Set up originally by the bosses as a company union, the VDWWA soon began to take a confrontational stance towards the Shipping Federation. By 1935, nearly every port in British Columbia had been organised by the VDWWA. Following the pretext to the destruction of the ILA, the Shipping Federation provoked another major strike in the spring of 1935, locking out 50 dockers at the port at Powell River.
The strike soon snowballed to bring other dockers across the region into the fold. Following a refusal to unload ships coming from Powell River, 900 workers were met with a lockout in Vancouver. Dockers across the border in Seattle also refused to unload ships coming from Vancouver and Powell River that were manned by non-union workers.
On June 18, several weeks after the original lockout, between 900-1100 dockers and their supporters marched through Vancouver towards Ballantyne Pier where non-union workers were unloading ships. The strikers were met at the pier by several hundred armed policeman. Attempting to force their way through, the dockers soon found themselves under attack from the police lines. Many marchers were clubbed as they tried to run to safety, while many others tried hopelessly to fight back, using whatever weapons they could find. Aided by Mounties who had been posted nearby, the police continued to attack the strikers. The VDWWA union hall was attacked, with tear gas being used against members of the women's auxiliary who had set up a first aid station inside. The battle continued for three hours, and ended with several hospitalizations, including that of a fleeing striker who had been shot in the back of his legs.
Dragging on until December, the strike lost much of its militant character after the fighting at Ballantyne Pier. The struggle to form a union completely independent of the Shipping Federation continued for another two years, when, in 1937, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) was born.
The strike of 1935 failed. It did, however, lay the path for the future founding of a union for the dockers of British Colombia which was completely independent of the employers' association. The ILWU participated in numerous disputes in the following years, and in the 1940s was integral in winning many strikes that lead to better pay and conditions for waterfront workers.
Source: http://libcom.org
Background
Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association
The Vancouver and District Waterfront Association was the union for longshoremen working on Vancouver's waterfront between 1923 and 1935.It was established as a company union by the Shipping Federation of British Columbia after it defeated a strike and broke the local of the International...
(VDWWA) was established as a company union
Company union
A company union is a trade union which is located within and run by a company or by the national government, and is not affiliated with an independent trade union. Company unions were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, due to their use as agents for interference...
following a defeated longshoremen's strike in 1923, replacing the International Longshoremen's Association
International Longshoremen's Association
The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...
. Communist organizers with the Workers' Unity League
Workers' Unity League
The Workers' Unity League was created in 1929 as a labour central operated by the Communist Party of Canada on the instructions of the Communist International....
(WUL) managed to seize control of the VDWWA's executive a decade later and transformed it into a militant union, which then began working towards strike action. A strike, or more accurately a lock-out, finally commenced on 27 May 1935. This was several months after an agreement had been reached between the union and the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, but the terms of which were unfavourable to the longshoremen. In late May, union membership voted to take over the despatching of work gangs on the harbour to load and unload ships as required. Despatching was a key issue for longshoremen, and prior to the 1923 strike had been carried out by the union. Longshoremen claimed that the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, an employers' association of waterfront-based companies and the main employer on the docks, unfairly discriminated against workers. Especially targeted were those considered sympathetic to an independent union or simply disliked by the despatcher, making the allocation of work a punitive mechanism and the job itself insecure. When the union unilaterally took over despatching, the Federation claimed it was a violation of their agreement and locked out the longshoremen. Replacement workers, known pejoratively as "scabs" by strikers, were mobilized along with hundreds of police specials
Special constable
A Special Constable is a law enforcement officer who is not a regular member of a police force. Some like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police carry the same law enforcement powers as regular members, but are employed in specific roles, such as explosive disposal technicians, court security, campus...
recruited to break the strike.
Anticommunist context
Meanwhile, nearly 2000 relief camp workers flooded into Vancouver on 4 April 1935. These were unemployed men protesting the conditions of the federal relief camps that were set up as a stop-gap solution to the unemployment crisis by the Department of Defence. Camp inmates were also organized under the Workers' Unity League into the Relief Camp Workers' UnionRelief Camp Workers' Union
The Relief Camp Workers' Union was the union into which the inmates of the Canadian government relief camps were organized in the early 1930s. It was affiliated with the Workers' Unity League, the trade union umbrella of the Communist Party of Canada...
. Communist leaders were attempting to merge the two strikes and spark a general strike. The Shipping Federation and the police were aware of this plan, and claimed it was an attempt to start a Bolshevik revolution on the Pacific Coast
Pacific Coast
A country's Pacific coast is the part of its coast bordering the Pacific Ocean.-The Americas:Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western border.* Geography of Canada* Geography of Chile* Geography of Colombia...
. Thus, when the waterfront strike finally began, tensions were already high between anticommunists and strikers.
Beatty Street Drill Hall
The Beatty Street Drill Hall is a Canadian Forces armoury located at 620 Beatty Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is the home of The British Columbia Regiment , an armoured reconnaissance reserve regiment, the oldest military unit in Vancouver, and the most senior militia in the province...
under Brigadier-General Victor Odlum
Victor Odlum
Victor Wentworth Odlum, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. was a Canadian journalist, soldier, and diplomat. He was a prominent member of the business and political elite of Vancouver, British Columbia from the 1920s until his death in 1971...
and Colonel C.E. Edgett
Charles Edgar Edgett
Colonel Charles Edgar Edgett was the warden of the British Columbia Penitentiary , the Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department , an active anticommunist and opponent of organized labour in Vancouver, Canada.Colonel Edgett briefly served in the North West Mounted Police before receiving...
and were coordinated by a group called the Citizens' League of British Columbia, a vigilante organization funded by the Shipping Federation. Militia units based in the Point Grey
West Point Grey
West Point Grey is a neighbourhood on the western side of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered by 16th Avenue to the south, Alma Street to the east, English Bay to the north, and Blanca Street to the west...
neighbourhood of Vancouver and in Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
were also ready to be called to action on short notice. The Point Grey militia, however, consisted of inmates of a specially designated relief camp and many of them eventually joined the relief camp strikers.
The Communist plan to merge the strikes and spark a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
failed, except for a one-day demonstration commemorating May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
. On 3 June 1935, shortly after the waterfront strike began, the relief camp strikers left the city to begin the On-to-Ottawa Trek
On-to-Ottawa Trek
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a long journey where thousands of people had unemployed men protesting the dismal conditions in federal relief camps scattered in remote areas across Western Canada. The men lived and worked in these camps at a rate of twenty cents per day before walking out on strike in...
in an effort to take their grievance to the nation's capital. Nevertheless, the authorities persisted in conflating the waterfront strike with revolution, perhaps because they were alarmed by the waterfront strike in the United States
1934 West Coast Longshore Strike
The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike lasted eighty-three days, triggered by sailors and a four-day general strike in San Francisco, and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States...
the previous year that shut down most shipping operations along the American coast and which culminated in a bloody general strike in San Francisco.
The battle
On 18 June 1935, about 1000 protesters, consisting of striking longshoremen and their supporters, marched towards the Heatley Street entrance to Ballantyne Pier, where strikebreakers were unloading ships in the harbour.Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
recipient Mickey O'Rourke and a contingent of First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
veterans and marched behind a Union Jack flag, to great symbolic effect. At the entrance to the pier, they were met by Chief Constable Colonel W. W. Foster, who warned the demonstrators that they would not be permitted to proceed. When they refused to turn back, protesters were attacked with clubs by the police guarding the pier. Within minutes, more police joined in the fight. In addition to the Vancouver city police
Vancouver Police Department
The Vancouver Police Department is the police force for the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several police departments within the Metro Vancouver Area and is the second largest police force in the province after RCMP "E" Division.VPD was the first Canadian police force...
, contingents from the British Columbia Provincial Police
British Columbia Provincial Police
The British Columbia Provincial Police was the policing body for the Canadian province of British Columbia until 1950. The force is usually dated from the appointment of Chartres Brew in 1858 with the formation of the Colony of British Columbia and associated appointments...
, who had been hiding behind boxcars, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
, engaged with demonstrators. The police chased the dispersing crowd, continuing to club people even as they fled and fired tear gas. Many protesters fought back, throwing rocks and other projectiles at the police, while others that were attacked were simply trying to flee the scene. The ensuing melee continued for three hours and spread throughout the nearby residential district. Several people, both police and protesters, were hospitalized as a result of the riot, and one bystander was shot in the back of his legs by a police shotgun. Offices of Communist organizers and the longshoremen's union were also raided, with tear gas shot through the windows to drive out any occupants before the police entered. Strike supporters set up a makeshift hospital at the Ukrainian Hall, and the police did the same for their wounded at the Coroner's Court on Cordova Street. In total, 28 out of the 60 injured were hospitalized and 24 men were arrested. Mayor Gerry McGeer
Gerry McGeer
Gerald Grattan McGeer was a lawyer, populist politician, and monetary reform advocate in the Canadian province of British Columbia...
declared that striking longshoremen would no longer be eligible for relief payments for themselves or their families.
Outcome
The Battle of Ballantyne was the bloody climax of a very volatile year in Vancouver, but fell far short of the insurrection anticipated by the police and anticommunists. It was also a turning point in the waterfront strike, which, although it dragged on until December, lost its optimistic and militant character after the battle. Longshoremen, however, would continue to fight for the right to organize an independent union and to control despatching, and finally succeeded a decade later when they formed the International Longshore and Warehouse UnionInternational Longshore and Warehouse Union
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii and Alaska, and in British Columbia, Canada. It also represents hotel workers in Hawaii, cannery workers in Alaska, warehouse workers throughout...
(ILWU), Local 500.
It was also the last of WUL militancy that Vancouver would witness. That same year, the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
abandoned its Third Period
Third Period
The Third Period is a ideological concept adopted by the Communist International at its 6th World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928....
strategy, which entailed the creation of the Workers' Unity League and similar militant trade union organizations in other countries with the goal of building a radical labour movement separate
Dual unionism
Dual unionism is the development of a union or political organization parallel to and within an existing labor union. In some cases, the term may refer to the situation where two unions claim the right to organize the same workers....
from mainstream labour organizations. Under the new Popular Front
Popular front
A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, often made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal forces as well as socialist and communist groups...
strategy, Communists joined established unions and helped to build the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
. Moreover, Communist priorities shifted from the industrial to the political arena, where they fielded candidates and supported Cooperative Commonwealth Federation candidates, while others joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
The Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion or Mac-Paps were a battalion of Canadians who fought as part of the XV International Brigade on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Except for France, no other country gave a greater proportion of its population as volunteers in Spain than Canada. The...
to fight Franco's
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
fascists
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
.
While far more localized than the On-to-Ottawa Trek, the Battle of Ballantyne Pier was part of the fierce, and perhaps paranoid, anticommunist reaction provoked by the Communists
Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...
and the militant workers' movement they led. Public attitudes shifted away from the Conservative
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
government of R.B. "Iron Heel" Bennett because of its mishandling of depression-era unrest in such events, which paved the way for Bennett's defeat in the federal election
Canadian federal election, 1935
The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...
that same year. Although machine guns were not used in the riot, another First World War technology was introduced in Vancouver policing that day: tear gas. Another major clash between the unemployed and the police took place in 1938. Relief camp workers returned to the city and were violently evicted from Post Office
Sinclair Centre
Sinclair Centre is an upscale shopping mall in Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. It is located at 757 West Hastings Street between Granville and Howe streets. The centre comprises four buildings that were restored by Henriquez Partners Architects in 1986 at a cost of $38 million. The main post...
by means of tear gas bombs and police clubs (primarily the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
in that instance).